The amendment requires that the Securities and Exchange Commission write regulations certifying that companies are not using metals from so-called “conflict mines” in electronics manufacturing.

“We crossed into the Democratic Republic of the Congo and met with the minister of mines,” said McDermott. “They tried to convince us they are dealing with the problem and didn’t need our bill. We disagreed. It is pretty clear the bill is already having some impact.”

The Rwandan tribal genocide of 1994, in which an estimated 1 million people died, spilled over into the Congo. Tutsi tribesmen fled the genocide. And, when a Tutsi-led government took power, much of the Hutu population of northwest Rwanda fled into Congo.

“Everybody was getting slaughtered across the border. Both the people who caused the genocide and those who were its victims were on the Congolese side,” McDermott said.

Rwanda has recovered and made what McDermott called “unbelievable” progress, adding, “They intend to be the Singapore of Africa.” It is installing fiber-optic cable and protecting its famed mountain gorillas with an eye to eco-tourism. But the situation across the border borders on the chaotic.

Eastern Congo is rich in three metals — tungsten, tin and tantalum — used in just about everything electronic.

Renegade armed groups, using local villagers as slaves, “shovel these metals into bags and bring it to the mines,” said McDermott. “It is how they have funded a war over the last 10 years.”

The SEC is in the process of writing the regulations. “I think they would just as soon we hadn’t passed this,” McDermott quipped, “but they know that pressure on the part of Durbin and I will continue.”

He is pleased that such companies as Apple have made clear they won’t use metals from conflict mines. But foreign auto manufacturers, operating in the U.S., have put up resistance.

McDermott and Reps. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., and Donald Payne, D-N.J., were on a tour sponsored by CARE and paid for by the Gates Foundation.